This is the guide to the brand new Kuja EX stage. In terms of this stage… it’s very hard. If you haven’t tried it already, just know that even with the best of the best units and gear, if you are not aware of what the fight entails, it will prove to be a challenge. I myself took 5 times worth of fails until I figured out a very, very important thing that you must do against the boss to aid your victory. More on that later though.
Prep Phase: Who to Bring
In similar fashion to my latest Prishe LC guide, we are going to be starting with your party composition. Different from last time however, I’m going to be splitting the units into three sections instead of two. This is for a couple of reasons. One being that I want to talk about more units to cover most if not all the units you have ready to go. Second being to cover all of the units that actually have cleared the stage while also at the same time limiting controversy over units being placed (or not placed) in this section. I hope this change is for the better, but if you want me to go back to two sections, then please let me know!
EDIT: For clarity, Highly Valuable Units are the best units for the stage hands down (in order). Mostly Valuable Units are great units to bring, but they may need babysitting or there may be some caveats to them (in order). Not So Valuable Units are units I can not recommend taking, even if they seem like they might be good for the stage.
Highly Valuable Units
Kuja – Our newest addition to the roster is a powerful one. Since this is his event, he provides great strength as expected. Holy and AoE damage are very valuable throughout the entire stage. If you have him, use him. Period.
Sazh – He will probably be top 3 in every one of my guides for a good while. On this stage in particular though, he runs out of steam HARD when he has no ability uses left. My advice is to save Aim uses even on the last wave, so you have some break power at the tail end of the fight. Great pick as always.
Papalymo – Fire plus Ice weakness. No other reason. With Sazh his damage is off the charts, without Sazh his damage is still off the charts. Second best, if not the best friend support pick for this stage.
Eiko – Her Smite is sooo good here thanks to the Holy weakness of the boss. Saving all your Smites for the end allows you to keep momentum even if your team is out of uses. She rounds out most if not all team comps.
Yuna – I tried to use her myself but failed pretty miserably because I didn’t have her new 35cp weapon. With only her 15cp she seems pretty weak overall, but with it she is one of the better options on this stage. Esuna is good here for obvious reasons, the boss is a Marlboro. Cheer with the new team buffs are very valuable to your success against this boss as well.
Garnet – She has the advantage of Water weakness plus AoE damage which is fantastic. Her AoE brave lets her cap easily and saves her skill uses, thus giving her nice longevity. She can even spare some uses of Peridot Thunderflash on the earlier waves.
Mostly Valuable Units
Setzer – Synergy does him well here and his recent buffs compliment that. His damage is very good, and his freeze can be very, very useful if you time it right. Takes a little more brain power to pull off, but a solid addition regardless.
Cloud – Very unexpected, but Cloud’s paralyze is huge. Delaying the bosses turns so you have extra time to attack before you get debuffed is almost as good as getting rid of them. He can also dispel the boss’ buffs if you have Crimson Edge which is a nice touch. As long as you save all his uses for the final wave he works wonders.
Prishe – Her longevity, hitting weakness, and AoE damage lets her shine here. Since all she has is shave and no real utility, she is not higher up on this list. If you have her from the new LC banner, I strongly recommend giving her a go.
Faris – Like Prishe, her banner is here so you might have gotten her already. Her debuffs and dispells work the best over other dispellers because of the boss’ Motherly Love buff being AoE and potent. Water weakness also gives her the edge in this fight.
Vanille – Not as good as Faris imo, but many have praised her, so I wouldn’t be doing right by them if I left her off this list. AoE dispel and huge battery are amazing. Only reason she’s not higher is because of her uses, but she is still a solid adversary.
Tidus – He always finds a way to come back for me. I’m getting my damn 150k gems worth for his 35cp since his Spd debuff is killer here. When alongside Cloud or Vaan support the boss will never even think about debuffing you since he can’t even act. I cannot stress the power of his debuffs enough. It’s really a shame his damage is so low.
Vaan – Hard to make work in your main team, but he’s the best support to use above Papalymo, while the blind is inconsistent at times, the def down debuff and pure damage thanks to Holy weakness makes him the best friend to have. I know some people used him on their main team, but all the ones I saw do that used Sazh, so I can’t place him any higher.
Hope – Hope with 35cp does well in giving you a safety net while also sliding off some more buffs in conjunction with Eiko or Sazh. On the right team comp he does very well and if you have his 35cp he might be your saving grace!
Not So Valuable Units
Squall – His damage, even with Sazh, is pitiful. Uses are too low to put on your main team and those uses aren’t as good as a lot of others. Just not his event to be honest. I can’t even recommend taking him as a support when Vaan and Papalymo are so good.
Lightning – Similar to Squall, Claire doesn’t bring you anything outside of damage and, her damage is not good here. Yea you may be able to go so fast that you get an extra turn or two before the boss, but so can Prishe. Let’s not compare though. Even with those turns she’s not doing much. She struggles here.
Ashe – I think it’s like my thing to shit on Ashe even though I don’t want to because I have all her weapons and I like her a lot. However, a lot of bosses have been holy weak, and she just does nothing despite that. Sorry princess…
Summon choice is Ifrit all the way, no other option. Like I said within the unit evaluations, Vaan and Papalymo wreck house. You can be very picky about your supports which is why I only suggest the top two or three. Anything outside these two and you’re just hurting your chances to be honest.
Battle Phase: What to Do
This fight is hard as I said at the beginning. Harder than any of the current Lost Chapters besides Vanille. Maybe even harder than her. I’ve seen some breeze through it, but I’ve seen many more struggle greatly, which is why I felt I had to get this out immediately. Let’s look at the waves first then we’ll talk strategy.
- Wave 1: Sweeper x2, Wight
- Wave 2: Sweeper, Miniature Magitek Armor
- Wave 3: Vanguard Magitek Armor
- Wave 4: Sweeper x2, Wight
- Wave 5: Mother Weed, (Weedlets x2)
I don’t think you should be using any ability uses at all outside of Sazh Attack Boost or Garnet Peridots. That means no Eiko HP Gens or Smites, no Papalymo Fires, and no Yuna Esunas! Just go through and kill everything as methodically as possible. It is actually impossible to clear this stage and miss the 19k score challenge as the boss will kill you long before then, so take your time.
The mid boss is just a Magitek. It falls down when you break it and it’ll debuff you when you when it come back up. You can probably get away with one or two brv-hp attacks from your dps units to get you through, or you can save the uses. Either way, the real challenge is to come.
Mother Weed is an absolute terror. Just going through what she does first. Everything debuffs you. Her HP attack debuffs you, her breath debuffs you, her AoE tentacle slap does massive damage to an AoE HP attack. She has two versions of Marlboro bad breath, first being Fetid Breath which inflicts three debuffs, second being Stench which inflicts five freaking debuffs. On top of that she can also use Photosynthesis which gives her HP Regen, or towards the end of the fight she gives her and her Weedlets very potent Atk and Def buffs. Jeez that’s a lot, now imagine if she-… oh yea. She has a shit ton of HP, great.
Strategy for this boss is damn crucial so listen up. Do not kill both Weedlets. I repeat, do not kill both Weedlets. If you leave one Weedlet alive it does a couple things for you. One, it makes it so that she won’t summon more. Two, she won’t buff herself. Three, you can use it as a pseudo-battery for your team. Now this does come with the downside of the Weedlet Impaling you every chance it gets, giving you Poison and Def Down, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Kill one Weedlet, get the other to red HP, focus Mother Weed.
Now you want to pop Ifrit before she uses her breath for the first time. So, when you see ALL on her targetter, pop that summon. You want to use friend units early as killing off one of the Weedlets and getting the other weak is easier with Vaan and Papalymo. Using Vaan to blind Mother Weed is also very important if you have him. I used my friend Vaan as soon as wave 5 started to replace my Eiko to get the dps rolling. I don’t know about saving your friend unit for the end of the fight to keep momentum because I haven’t seen anyone do it. To be fair it doesn’t sound like a bad idea on paper.
Conclusion
I have a bunch of thanks to give yet again, but before I do that I want to remind you guys that I’m trying my hardest to pump out these guides for everyone. With the introduction of character event EX stages, I’ll be here every week making a Warrior’s Guide for it. I’m hoping I can really make a name for myself in the community and for my guides to be a well-known source of info to help people get past the most challenging aspects of the game.
